dimes of light by John Pappas
“The dimes of light collection by John Pappas contains solitaria linea. This reminds me of William Wordsworth’s famous ballad ‘The Solitary Reaper,’ where we stumble to understand melancholic beauty, except it remains long after the last notes of its music fades away. Aren’t we all, as poets, looking for a profound exploration of humanity amongst the liminal? Is liminality not the quality of disorientation, before we reach the end stage, of a rite of passage? Through intent, we as readers will travel tense imagery, emotional resonance, and attempted unity. From ‘feeling leafless,’ that uneasy link with greater nature, and our ‘anxiety of alphabets,’ we clumsily fumble ‘deep in eeldark’ seeking out our ‘plainsong of wetware.’ Do we ever fully succeed?”
— Alan Summers, Editor of The Pan Haiku Review & Founder of Call of the Page
“The monoku in dimes of light by John Pappas are haiku fortune cookies. Only by getting your hands on them and breaking them open, can you get to the insight that awaits inside.”
— Bryan Rickert, Editor of Failed Haiku
About the Author:
John Pappas is a poet and teacher whose work has appeared in many poetry journals and anthologies. In 2023, his haiku garnered a Touchstone Award from The Haiku Foundation, a Trailblazer award, a silver medal in the Ito En New Haiku Grand Prix, Best in the United States in the 2023 Vancouver Invitational, and honorable mention in the 2024 Heliosparrow Frontier Awards. His longer poetry has twice been selected for the Mayor of Boston’s Poetry Contest (2016 and 2020). John lives in Boston, MA with his wife and two daughters.
